FAQs Page 4

These exercises remind me of low back exercises I learned last year. What is the difference between low back and pelvic floor rehabilitation exercises?

As we stress in the DVD, both our pelvic floor and low back muscles work with our stomach and hip muscles to form our abdominal basket. You see the similarities because a healthy low back is dependent on a strong abdominal basket, requiring us to work our pelvic floor muscles, our stomach muscles and our hip muscles. Just the same, a healthy pelvic floor requires a strong abdominal basket, again, dependent on strengthening our low back muscles, our stomach muscles and our hip muscles. The differences in the two rehab regimens would be the emphasis on pelvic floor isolation exercises in a pelvic floor rehab program and the emphasis on isolating our low back extensors in a low back rehab program.

What if I perform these exercises three times a week for six weeks and I experience no change in my symptoms?

You should see a women’s health care specialist for a thorough evaluation. It’s possible you may not be contracting your pelvic floor effectively and may require additional intervention to get your pelvic floor muscles retrained to react appropriately again. This can be compared to a knee patient who is trying to fire the muscle in the front of her thigh so she can walk normally. Some patients are able to fire this muscle again shortly after surgery and some patients require electric stimulation to assist the muscle contraction until a normal firing pattern is achieved independently.